Blogs ablaze over Obama's remarks

The liberal blogosphere erupted in celebration Wednesday over President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage — as did the uncategorizable columnist Andrew Sullivan — but a few voices stopped short of uncorking the champagne, arguing that the president’s latest position doesn’t go far enough.

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“Obama … stopped short of lending full support to the multi-state legal and political campaign for marriage equality. According to ABC News, the President stressed that his is a ‘personal position,’ and he continues to think that states should decide the issue independently,” The Nation’s Richard Kim writes. “In at least one crucial way then, Obama’s announcement stops short of a full reversal of policy.”

While noting the “tremendous symbolic value” of Obama’s endorsement, The American Prospect’s Jamelle Bouie wrote, “Obama has not endorsed marriage equality as a constitutional right or as a fundamental right. His position is marriage equality federalism; the government should leave decisions about same-sex marriage to the states. Obama’s statement leaves room for states like North Carolina and Virginia to discriminate against same-sex couples.”

The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan — an openly gay ,self-proclaimed conservative who supports Obama — was more optimistic, writing that he was speechless and teary-eyed after ABC News aired an excerpt of Robin Roberts’ interview with the president.

”The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect,” he conceded. “But it reaffirms for me the integrity of this man we are immensely lucky to have in the White House. Obama’s journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it.”

AllahPundit, at the conservative HotAir blog, took a position closer to his liberal counterparts than to Sullivan, arguing that the president’s position was a “charade.”

“Instead of ‘I support gay rights but oppose gay marriage’ it’s now ‘I support gay marriage but oppose federal intervention’ … This position too is a charade,” he wrote.

Most on the left took a glass-half-full view, as exemplified by David Dayen of FireDogLake: “This concludes one part of a years-long struggle, where LGBT activists demand, and then achieve, support for equality, inch by inch. It’s very clear that this would not have happened without activists pushing at all levels. In addition, the well of LGBT fundraising support in this election cycle has been vital for the President, to the extent that it’s replaced much of the dropoff from Wall Street in 2008.”

On the right, meanwhile, there were some nasty reactions, with conservative bloggers accusing the president of “heresies,” “circular leadership” and even exploitation of his daughters.

“He attributes his evolution to his Christian faith… This is not surprising. Anyone who learned Christian theology from Jeremiah Wright is bound to have imbibed a substantial number of heresies,” wrote RedState’sStreiff.

“Obama isn’t breaking any new ground here, but rather simply reclaiming a previous position. Evolutionary leadership. Or is that circular leadership? Whatever. Forward™!” Doug Powers wrote at Michelle Malkin’s blog.

Town Hall blogger Greg Hengler sums up his argument with the title of his post, “Obama Exploits His Daughters (Again) To Justify Gay Marriage Support” — a reference to Obama saying that “it wouldn’t dawn on” Malia and Sasha, who have friends with same-sex parents, “that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them, and frankly that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”

In the past three days, the topic of same-sex marriage has been driving the conversation: Vice President Joe Biden saying Sunday that he’s “ absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage; Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s endorsement of same-sex nuptials on Monday; a new Gallup poll Tuesday showing a majority of Americans support it but 48 percent don’t; and Tuesday’s landslide passage of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in North Carolina.

So, of particular interest to bloggers on all sides was how the president could be politically disadvantaged by his position on gay marriage — and, in particular, how it could affect African-American turnout.

“Black churches overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage… No one should be under any illusions that supporting gay marriage could cost Obama the black vote. It won’t. November will be about the economy, full stop. But it could cost him enough of the black vote to hurt him in November,” predicted conservative blogger Bryan Preston at PJTatler.

“Two core Obama constituencies -– young voters and African-Americans — are on opposite sides of the gay marriage divide… So Obama, even more nuanced than Senator John Kerry, continues to try and be perceived as if he is both for and against gay marriage,” said Dan Spencer at RedState.

“The vote also illustrates the reluctance of some Democrats, including African-Americans, to embrace gay marriage, which is opposed by a majority of Republicans, according to polls,” notes Perry Bacon Jr. at TheGrio, which covers African-American issues. “[I]n several of the majority-black counties [in North Carolina] that Obama carried in 2008, the [anti-gay marriage] amendment received more than 60 percent support.”

And over at the conservative Powerline blog, John Hinderaker took a broader approach: he writes that the gay marriage results in North Carolina mean that “the issue is a loser for Democrats in swing states,” which explains “the bizarre dance that Obama is doing around the issue.”